helenas

Got a bag of persian dired limes from Kalustyan's. So far tried them in black peas and spinach curry with dill from Jaffrey's pink book - the flavor came quite interesting especially in combination with dill. Would like to try more ideas, please share.

Recently i made a confit of quails using olive oil only, in fact i used a recipe for coddled pork from Wolfert's last book including the marinade overnight part (spatchcocked in crushed peppercorns and wild fennel): it came out great.

I made couple of dishes from the book and they came out perfectly: agree with Monica - the flavors are so fresh! 1. chicken braised in green mango chutney; 2. duck orange curry, this is a very unusual dish: for me it was difficult to come up with appropriate sides - ended up serving it with millet cake and roasted cauliflower.

And also their "Country Breads of the World" - i rushed to get this book right after reading John Thorne's review of it, you won't find him that excited often And besides, this is the only book i know of that has a recipe for Russian Borodinsky bread.

In my area (Central Jersey) Spirits Unlimited (both in Middletown and Red Bank) do a decent job carrying quite a few microbrews and imports. Where do you shop for interesting beers? Thank you, Helena

Elie, sounds amazing, i'm ready to try them asap and have couple of questions: -what kind of oil - can i use evoo, or it's too strong and the mild one is preferable? - sealed, does it mean just covered (i'm planning to use tall mason jars) or one needs to go through the hassle of pasterization and stuff? Thank you, Helena

I vaguely remember there was an article about this somewhere, i think it was in Art Culinaire actually...

Recently i got her Chinese Kitchen. What an amazing book: highly readable, lot of things to learn and to taste.

Susan, i found a wonderful idea in japanese cookbook Shunju: fava beans grilled in their pods with scallions: couple of weeks ago i was actually about to try this but the pouring rain prevented me from doing so. The book is searchable on amazon, so you might want to check it.

for those less fortunate, i've just read about the possible substituation for robust purslane - watercress.

Our Weber's piece de resistance is a whole baby salmon hickory grilled (indirect fire). Need nothing except for maybe a squirt of lemon.

Yes, it's a good book, and his new one The Real Greek at Home(unfortunately, available only through UK Amazon), is even better. And since the food media these days is full of splendid greek themed articles/recipes, let me contirbute the link below, from australian Gourmet Traveller (great magazine, btw, and seems to have started to appear in some B&Ns). Moussaka recipe by Andy Harris (excellent author on greek food), as well as the lamb shanks baked in paper (has this technique been just discussed on vine leaves thread?) , that i'm definitely making tonight.

Sam Smith of course, especially their Oatmeal Stout - incomparable.

Curry plants are available in US, at least i bought one couple of years ago from Well Sweep Hern Farm in NJ. My mistake, i should have put it in the container, and brought inside when winter came. Apparently curry plant is not hardy.

If this is the best Chinese place in Monmouth, our county is in real trouble.

It might seem ironic that with my current signature evangalizing the Meat book i would want to solicit the feedback on any interesting vegetarian ones. But it fact, the Meat book was one of the reasons for me to seriously reconsider my diet, in terms of meat sources and other related issues. Now, i still want to make delicious and interesting dishes, so here is my current list of books that live up to the idea: A Passion for Vegetables by Paul Gayler, a gem. Cafe Paradiso Seasons, delight to read: have yet to cook from it but recipes sound so good. The Gate Vegetarian Cookbook: Where Asia Meets the Mediterranean: i expected more from it considering a very favorable review in UK Telegraph, but i need more time to make sure. Vegetables by Guy Martin: breathtaking photography by Isabelle Rozenbaum, she worked on several book with Martin - i wish they were published in english, and in french they're damn expensive. Of course, Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone is always used as a source for ideas. Honorary mention - Schneider's Vegetables Amaranth to Zucchini.

i assumed that this unpleasant sensation comes from overworking the custard in the ice creamer, similar to the process of butter churning, but i need to experiment more to say this with certainty.

trillium, could you please elaborate on this one, please? When i made the olive oil ice cream yesterday, i used your thermometer technique (double checking with coated spoon method). The texture of the ice cream was nice and soft but i attributed it to the olive oil.

Although not a gelato, here is a recipe for an olive oil ice cream: by Jacques Chibois. The recipe is almost similar to the cold cream from his excellent "Olive Oil" book. I'm planning to make it tonight.

Stopped to buy any US magazines except for Food & Wine (mostly getting it because of Wolfert) Had a subscription to french Saveur and still have to Cuisine et Vins De France - no plans to renew. But i enjoy every issue of Australian Vogue (like to browse through the back issues) and relatively recently discovered Delicious. And my B&N just stocked on australian Gourmet Traveller and after reading through i'm looking forward for the next issue.

Claudia Roden has a new book coming up in Spring of 2005: A New Illustrated Book of Middle Eastern and North African Cookery. Another very nice book just came out (got it couple of days ago): Season in Morocco: A Culinary Journey by Meera Freeman: one more australian food writer to take notice of. Gorgeous pictures, unusual recipes.

Jinmyo, sounds really interesting: i was sort of skeptical about the effect of flavor steaming, so much so that i stupidly never bothered to try... but i'm steaming the eggs over lapsang souchong tonight, and couscous over dried porcini tomorrow

I used one bag of Stash Camomile tea (plus one vanilla bean split and scraped: using both bean pieces and seeds) for 1 cup of water, 1.5 cups of sugar and pound of apricots. One bag was more than enough to produce a wonderful aroma, and was in perfect harmony with vanilla. and btw, Collichio has a wonderful recipe for apricot compote in his latest book, and Ramsay has a mousse with cinnamon in his Dessert one: another apricot flavor combination i remember seeing was cardamon.

ducphat30, you're a genius: of course, this is what i had in mind - so it was not a book after all: but at least i got the amaretti part correctly Thanks much!

trillium, hope it's not too late: the perfect match for apricots would be camomile! The idea comes from Claudia Fleming's GT dessert book: roasted apricots with camomile flowers: i made this into gelato with great success, so it should work for preserve as well i guess.